1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to application of information printed on pages of a book and circuit elements placed thereon for the purposes of generating user input and corresponding output by adapting the book to an electronic data processing module. More particularly, this invention relates to an universal book adapting processing system for interfacing with multimedia books such that the multimedia books can be flexibly operated with removable data-storage media without requiring a book-specific electronic module whereby the cost of using multimedia books for learning and teaching enhancement can be reduced while the quality and performance of the multimedia book operations can be improved.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The "show-and-tell" types of "electronic books" currently available in the marketplace by taking advantage of the data processing capabilities of electronic modules are still limited by the difficulties that each book is adapted to a specific data-processing module suitable only for that book. The book-specific data-processing module is specially designed and manufactured uniquely for a pre-designated book to be adapted thereon. On the one hand, the application of such book is more expensive due the requirement that each book has to be adapted to a customized electronic module. On the other hand, in order to maintain reasonable price such that these "electronic books" in combination with the customized electronic module are marketable, the data-processing module and the circuit elements formed on the pages of the book are generally manufactured with cheap and simple processes. Therefore, limited by the cost constraints, the quality, performance and sophistication levels of functions provided in these "electronic books" are at the very low end when compared with what are achievable by current integrate circuit (IC) and multimedia data processing technology.
A typical "electronic book" 10 for learning or teaching enhancement, generally applied for children education, is shown in FIG. 1. This conventional "electronic book" includes a plurality of wired pages 15. Each of these wired pages includes printed illustrations 20, such as foods, animals, or daily items for which the pronunciations of those item's names are to be learned by a child. Next to each printed illustration 20 is a push button 25 which is connected by an electric wire 30 to a book's electronic module 40. When a child pushes the button next to an illustration showing a specific item, a signal, i.e., an address is transmitted via the wire 20 to the book's electronic module 40. The address signal generated by the child's action in pushing the button is transmitted to the book's electronic module 40 to initiate an audio output generated from a specific memory address depending on the page number and the button 25 pushed by the child. The audio output generated by the book's electronic module is the pronouncement of the name of the drawing 20 next to the button 25 pushed by the child thus allowing an interactive learning process to be carried out between the child and the "electronic book". Due to the limitation of the configuration employed by the conventional electronic book-10, each book is attached to a specific electronic module. The cost for manufacturing such electronic book for learning enhancement cannot be easily reduced. However, in order to lower the production cost of these "electronic books" to make them more marketable, the electric wires 30 and the book's electronic module 40 are made with simple and cheap materials and processes. The quality of the audio output and the features of functions performed by the electronic books are therefore limited by the price constraints.
Therefore, a need still exists in the art of designing and manufacturing the electronic books to provide better system configuration and method of interfacing the content presented on a multimedia book to a data-processing module such that the difficulties and limitations as encountered by those electronic book in the prior art can be resolved. It is desirable that the system configuration and method of interface can provide broader interfacing capabilities and greater degree of freedom whereby a user can moire conveniently and flexibly apply the improved system for learning enhancement without significantly increasing system costs.